December 2005 Archive

***Click on the above link to view the whole December 2005 archive***

December 24th, 2005

I’m only shooting film of my friends while I am back in
Saskatoon for the
holidays. Why? I really don’t know. I shoot soooo much digital, I just
want something different and to wait till I’m in the darkroom to see the
pictures.  Crazy!

December 22nd, 2005

December 15th, 2005

Derek Webb, of the Loyaist Lancers basketball team is
known for his anger during game time.

December 13th, 2005

Laurie Smith, manager of Pauloís Italian Restaurant in downtown
Belleville. Locally owned and operated, the restaurant is very popular
despite competition with other franchise restaurants.

December 11th, 2005

After a ten year hiatus, Scott Chandler (30) has sprung back into the
scene making him the oldest person in Canadian competitive
gymnastics.

December 9th, 2005

I was in Gatineau Quebec today shooting the Canadian
Gymnastics Championship.
Here is
what I saw.

December 8th, 2005

Tis’ the season….

December 6th, 2005

I shot the Vanier Cup on Saturday. Unfortunately the University of
Saskatchewan Huskies lost to Wilfrid Laurier 24-23 but it still made for
some good pictures!

December 2nd, 2005

I shot this for a studio assignment on food. I
photographed Ashley’s eye with Visine drops in it and then put the shot
up on my laptop screen and put the onion on a cutting board over the
keyboard. I popped a flash on the onions to balance the light with the
computer screen. The Visine was Ashley’s idea… I was just going to
hold chopped onions up to her eyes until she cried but the Visine was a
much better idea!

December 1st, 2005

I got a freelance job with The Toronto Star and my
assignment was to take a picture of a father and his two daughters
playing board games for a story about how the dad plays board games
rather than watching TV for family time.

I wanted to try and get something “different” and more
interesting than just three people sitting at a table playing a board
game so I bought a sheet of plexy glass from Home Depot for $20 and made
this picture. It paid off. They ran it half a page!

November 2005 Archive

***Click on the above link to view the whole November 2005 archive***

November 26th, 2005

Ashley and I went to Montreal this weekend for our two year
anniversary. We decided to go to and see the Penguins at the Biodome and
I have to say that they are the coolest animals in the world!

Usually when you go to a zoo to see animals they are lame and just
sleep or lay around but the Penguins swam, jumped, waddled, frolicked,
nurtured, played, and even….um….did it.

And yet they still can’t fly!

November 23, 2005

This video has been floating all over the net! THE best Christmas light display ever!!! Also check out the site Compfused.com A great place to waste time!

November 17th, 2005

November 15th, 2005

November 13th, 2005

November 12th, 2005

Well it took me about a year to get around to it but I copied all the bands from the main page to the bands section that were missing = 46 “new” bands in the BANDS section. Grand Total… over 273 bands ! Wow.

November 10th, 2005

Remember when I used to do this all the time?!
Pictures are up of
The Trews and
Rocketface when they played in
Kingston last night. Enjoy!

November 7th, 2005

November 6th, 2005

Marnie Vaughan looks out of place as she walks out of a
gas station in the bright hot sun of Ventura California. She is on her
way to a figure skating competition with her family from MontrÈal.

November 5th, 2005

Least politically correct
sign ever! And I found it in California of all places….

November 4th, 2005

November 3rd, 2005

So long story short I am going to a Sportsshooter conference this weekend in L.A. I had booked the flight several weeks ago and was all set and had my calendar marked as leaving on Thursday.My friend Aaron and I were going to drive to Detroit and fly to L.A. (for only $220US return airfare might I add!!) only when I received my confirmation e-mail from the airline a couple days ago I saw that I was booked to leave on the Wednesday … not the Thursday…. hmmmm. I double checked and yes… I accidentally booked to leave on the wrong day! Wow… I call the airline and it is going to cost me $200 US to change my flight from Wednesday to Thursday — not worth it. SOOOO… I bought a train ticket to Windsor, bummed a ride from my friends’ Dad to the Detroit airport and now I am in L.A. … 24 hrs before my friends are going to be here to go to the conference. I have nothing but time to do nothing… so what am I going to do? Catch Up! If you haven’t noticed below I have posted some updates from the last week that I have been meaning to put up. I have 24 hours, a few cans of Red Bull, and free Wi-Fi. Time to get everyone up to speed on the life of Ryan!

So What’s new with me you ask? Well something that hasn’t been
new is this site. I have only updated it a few times since I moved to
Ontario which is pathetic, yet I have never received sooo many visits
per day! I have been receiving 1300-2000 visits a day and my bandwidth
(75GB data transfer of pictures) is through the roof! It’s
funny how I am always afraid that if I don’t update very often I will
lose visitors but it is the opposite!

Remember when I wrote about how all my friends (and me) are addicted to Lost!? Well the funny thing about the picture to the right is that same night, after Ashley and I had a “Lost Party” with some friends over to watch the TV show our 80 year old landlord pounded on our door after everyone left and FREAKED OUT at us!

“Goddamnit! Did you have half of Loyalist College up there?! Your
shaking the whole Goddamn house!” He yelled. “I just had some friends
over to watch TV” I said “Do it somewhere else! I told you not to have
parties when you *PUNCH THE WALL* MOVED in here! *SLAMMED THE
DOOR*

Ashley and both had our jaws dropped. We had been in love of our cute
80 year old landlord who seemed charming and his lovely wife but then
all of a sudden we saw his mean side…. We certainly
weren’t having a party that night (we were just watching TV!), we
weren’t loud, yelling, or drinking but for some reason our landlord
constituted that as having a “party”.

Ashley and I didn’t have anyone over for two weeks after that. We
felt kind of uncomfortable (for obvious reasons) as we felt we had to
tiptoe around our own home for fear of our “crazy” landlord.

Then one night I had ONE (yes only one) friend over to help
edit a documentary she had shot in New Orleans last month. There were
only three of us (Ashley, Alexandra, and myself) and all we did was talk
and go through pictures. Alexandra left our place at 12:30am and tiptoed
down the stairs….. the next morning there was an eviction notice!
in our mailbox saying that we had been warned of “partying” before and
that the previous night (when I had ONE friend over) we were
unnecessarily loud and yelling and partying!!! 80 year old landlords
suck! I guess when he had asked us not to have parties in our
place he meant NO GUESTS AT ALL! That is completely unreasonable
and a landlord can’t tell a tenant (especially if they are paying
$850/month!) to not have guests or “live their lives” so we left!

If we had really wanted to stay at our place we could have fought the
eviction and stayed (since he didn’t have a solid case for kicking us
out according to our lawyer) but we decided to leave anyways. We didn’t
feel comfortable in our own home which isn’t the way it should be with
any rental property.

Luck also had it that there was an available
apartment above the place where
Ashley works which was in a better location of town, closer to the bus
terminal, more modern, AND $200/month cheaper so it was all a blessing
in disguise.

November 2nd, 2005

One of the worlds busiest
airports and I’m the only one here!

So after my adventures of last week for the Eastern Canadian News
Photographers Association (longest name ever) convention I am now going
to Los Angeles (or well I guess I’m already there)

I was out of the LAX terminal for not even 5 minutes taking pictures
and two police asked me to leave. I first thought “damn homeland
security!” then they told me it was due to a situation… I looked over
and there were a dozen “bomb squad” cars lined up!

I investigated and there was a suspicious package left in a terminal. I
shot a bunch of pictures but then the threat ended as it turned out to
be a false alarm. I only got a few shots in before the terminal was
reopened but wouldn’t it be awesome if I paid for this conference with
freelance spot news too!

November 1st, 2005

My friend Tom actually took this picture of the menu at a
restaurant we were in last weekend.I don’t even know what
“kind” of restaurant it was, and we could hardly understand the
waitress, but it was the best “kind” of food I’ve ever had.

Didn’t try the dish on the left though…. when I order
chicken I want the meat…not the bird!

October 2005 Archive

***Click on the above link to view the whole October 2005 archive***

Oct. 31st, 2005

November 1st, 2005

I updated my portfolio webpage
www.ryanjackson.ca

Check it out!

October 9th, 2005

October 6th, 2005

September 2005

***Click on the above link to view the whole September 2005 archive***

September 29th, 2005

We are all addicted to Lost! My friend Kevin bought the first
season of Lost and we are all hooked, watching the show like zombies, unable to
look away…. IT IS SUCH A GOOD SHOW!

So I haven’t updated much lately because… I haven’t really had
much to say or shoot due lately due to super business with school.  I
figured that the popularity of punkoryan.com must have been declining since I
don’t live in Saskatoon anymore and I don’t update that much and yet….. today
I go to my website and I get a message “Bandwidth Exceeded”…. huh? How could
my website have run out of bandwidth (maximum data transfer) if no one is going
to my site anymore?

So I check my stats for the site and…. there are still 1100+
people a day visiting punkoryan.com !!! I can’t believe this, but at the same
time am inspired to keep updating and working on this site because…. wow….a
lot of people still care!

Thank You!

September 22nd, 2005

September 20th, 2005

If you haven’t noticed I haven’t updated in a while? Why? I spent last week
working at the Pioneer school newspaper as Editor and have been spending more
time writing than shooting   but don’t worry there will be
many-o-pictures to come!  Here is my editorial for the paper from last
week. Enjoy!

You must often wonder why the
United States government doesnít watch more television or at least read the
paper. It seems that the news and relief organizations had a better handle on
what was going on, in the response to Hurricane Katrina than the federal
emergency organizations paid by taxpayers. The same taxpayers who are floating
dead in the waters of New Orleans right now.

It is sad that if you do a
Google search for ìKatrina wake up callî or ì9/11 wake up callî or ì2003
blackout wake up callî you will receive several hits for news articles quoting
government officials saying things like ìWe couldnít have seen this coming.î Or
even Michael Chertoff from the department of Homeland Security saying that
Hurricane Katrina ìwas really one which was breathtaking in its surprise.î

No it wasnít. Engineers,
scientists, and even reporters had been saying for years that New Orleansís
levee system would not withstand a category three or higher hurricane.
“Those FEMA officials wouldn’t listen to me,” said Ivor Van
Heerden, a hurricane researcher from Louisiana State University in an NBC
interview. ìThose Corps of Engineers people giggled in the back of the room when
we tried to present information.”

Even during the crisis of
Katrina, federal officials didnít know what was going on. The chilling CNN
interview with the now former Federal Emergency Management Agency director
Michael Brown admitting that FEMA was not aware that there were people housed up
in the New Orleans convention centre without food and water even though the news
corporations had been reporting it for hours. Do these people not have
televisions? Or perhaps people watching television for them, that can say things
like ìHey Michael Brown, you know that if the levees break New Orleans will be
under water right?î

While New Orleans residents
unable to evacuate the city dehydrated, drowned, and died, images of some 200
New Orleans school busses, enough to transport 13,000 people were shown on
television. CNN showed helicopters and millions of dollars in fire fighting
equipment sitting dormant for days after Katrina struck while New Orleans
residents died unnecessarily in the streets and their own homes from a lack of
necessities that should have been delivered before Katrina even hit.

It was not like FEMA did not
have time to prepare for Katrina. In a Canadian Press article, Max Mayfield,
director of the National Hurricane Center said Michael Brown, director of FEMA,
and other top officials were briefed as much as 32 hours in advance that Katrina
would cause catastrophic flooding to New Orleans. We can only hope that the
newly appointed director of FEMA, R. David Paulison, can help
pick up the pieces.

While the United States
finger-points and scrambles to clean up after its own bungles in the response to
Hurricane Katrina we all must shake our heads at a government which proclaims
the need to protect itself by invading other countries while not being able to
effectively manage a disaster on its own soil.  A strong difference between a
hurricane hitting a city and a weapon of mass destruction is that a hurricane
gives several days warning. These days could have been used to prepare for the
worst, rather than clean up after it.

The United States didnít cause Katrina, but if they can
spend so much money ìprotectingî themselves from terrorists and proclaiming to
be a super power, they need to be able to protect themselves from their own
incompetence in the federal protection agencies.

As much as the notion of
donating money to the Red Cross and other volunteer organizations to aid in the
rescue and recovery of New Orleans is a no-brainer, the question must be raised
why we as Canadians should give money to help the richest and most powerful
nation on Earth when they should be able to look after their own problems.

The sad answer may be that
relief organizations like the Red Cross, news organizations which keep tabs on
the governmentsí actions or lack thereof, and even celebrities seem to be doing
a better job of serving the people of New Orleans than the United States
government who should have been prepared for Katrina before it even hit.

September 16th, 2005

Pictures are up of
k-os when they
played at The Shark Tank last night. Enjoy!

September 12th, 2005

September 8th, 2005

Pictures are up of
Alexisonfire and
Protest the Hero when they played at The
Shark Tank on Tuesday night. I got the job as House Photographer for the campus
pub here so now I get paid to shoot bands!

I also posted pictures of the XXX Hypnotist

Tony Lee from last night. Even if you don’t know the people in the pictures
it is hilarious!

September 3rd, 2005

Ontario people nice, U-Haul bad! On Monday Ashley and I left by Bus to Ottawa so we could pick up some furniture and appliances that a friend of ours sold us. The 46 hour bus trip *flew* by as I was only awake for literally 7 hours of the 46 which means that I slept 39 hours in two days!  It was sooo sweet! I pretty much closed my eyes in Saskatoon, opened them a few times to eat and pee and then went back to sleep and woke up in Ottawa! As “the plan” had been set out, our friend Cory who was selling us pretty much his entire apartment with a king sized bed, TV, kitchen, bath, and furniture had booked a U-Haul back in July and was supposed to meet us at the bus terminal with all our luggage which we were going to load into the U-Haul and then drive directly to Belleville. *UNFORTUNATELY* U-Haul double booked our truck and so we didn’t have any way of moving our stuff….so… Ashley and I were stuck in Ottawa until U-Haul could find us a truck….something which they weren’t too efficient at doing. Along with the inconvenience of missing the truck, Ashley and I had 13 boxes of stuff that we had to store at the bus depot, Cory had to miss two days of work because we

were “on call” with U-Haul, I had a job interview in Belleville the next day
which I missed and since we had to have all of Cory’s stuff out of his apartment
by Aug 31st, we had to store all of our new furniture in a temporary storage
place at $50/day!  Everything went wrong!

*BUT* thanks to wonderful Ontario people ie. Cory’s awesome friends, we had a house with a guest room to sleep in for 3 days, we got rides around Ottawa to get to U-Haul and the bus depot to work things out, even though it was $50/day we were able to find storage for our stuff easy, we met lots of nice people and even had a dinner party and played this crazy board game called Settlers of Catan which is like Monopoly meets Roulette. U-Haul screwed us around for two days and couldn’t get us a truck to transport all our stuff, we were pretty much expecting to not get a truck until Sunday. Then Friday morning Cory called Hertz rentals and we were able to get a moving truck right away for less money than the U-Haul but we couldn’t leave it in Belleville so today Ashley and I drove all of our stuff to Belleville and unloaded the truck and then I drove it all the way back to Ottawa and am catching a train back to Belleville.

The Hertz people laughed because they get a lot of disgruntled U-Haul customers that come in and after hearing our story they gave us a 20% discount which was awesome!Hertz involved a lot of extra driving and money (Gas is crazy here!) but at least now we are finally moved into “the castle” and we have a cool story to tell and we love Ottawa people now (or at least Cory’s friends and Hertz) because they have been so nice.

I won’t have internet hooked up for a few days so unfortunately there won’t
be many updates for a while but be sure to check back later as I start school in
a few days and then there will be many more pictures to come.

Oh yeah, as for the job interview, I made it today and I GOT THE JOB! I am now the “house photographer” for the campus pub at my school and the first band that plays there on the 6th is Alexisonfire! Pretty cool I get paid to shoot bands now and punk-ontari-O-ryan can still have bands up every week! Also, despite popular belief you can substitute dishwasher detergent with laundry soap but be careful to not put too much in unless you like bubbles!

August 2005 Archive

***Click on the above link to view the whole August 2005 archive***

August 27th, 2005

Pictures are up of
The Ryan and Ashe Farewell Bash!
Enjoy!

August 26th, 2005

Pictures are up of
The
Paper *Kites when they played at Amigo’s Friday night. Enjoy!

August 25th, 2005

August 24th, 2005

August 23rd, 2005

August 22nd, 2005

August 21st, 2005

August 20th, 2005

Pictures are up of
Fury and
the Mouse from Saturday night at Amigos. Enjoy!

August 19th, 2005

August 18th, 2005

Pictures are up from last night of

The Bleeding Alarm,
Chimpan-A to
Chimpan-Z,
Lights Below, and
Cedar’s Bloom.

Enjoy!

August 17th, 2005

August 16th, 2005

August 15th, 2005

August 14th, 2005

A very busy weekend!  Pictures are up of
Chimpan-A to Chimpan-Z when they played
at The Roxy Sunday night,
Constantines
when they played at Louis’ last week,
Day at the Zoo with Kweku Pt. Deux,
and
Manchesters with Kate. Enjoy!

August 13th, 2005

August 12th, 2005

August 11th, 2005

August 10th, 2005

Pictures are up from Georgestock of
“The
People”,
Sparky,
Poser Disposer and of
Chimpan-A to Chimpan-Z from last
night at Louis’. Enjoy!

August 9th, 2005

August 8th, 2005

August 7th, 2005

Pictures will be up of Georgestock come Monday. See you then!

August 6th, 2005

FOR SALE: A Serta Queen Sized Mattress and box spring set with metal bed
frame. Only 2 yrs old in excellent condition. $275 obo. Please
e-mail me asap!

August 5th, 2005

August 4th, 2005

August 3rd, 2005

August 2nd, 2005

Pictures are long overdue of
Strung Out
Ten Second Epic and
The Transplants from Warped Tour!
Enjoy

August 1st, 2005

July 2005 Archive

***Click on the above link to view the whole July 2005 archive***

July 30th, 2005

July 29th, 2005

J

July 27th, 2005

July 26th, 2005

July 25th, 2005

So for the last three days whenever I tried to update my website I got an error saying that I was out of disk space. I thought to myself that there must be some error because there is no way my website is out of space and then….. I actually checked my website statistics and wow…. 3 GB of web space all used up!  3 years and 3 gigs of pictures on this website… wow. I need more web space!

July 23rd, 2005

Hopesfall
Fallout Boy
Hawthorne Heights
My Chemical Romance
Enjoy!

July 22nd, 2005

July 21st, 2005

Pictures are up of

Dropkick Murphys. Enjoy!

July 20th, 2005

Don’t worry. More Warped Tour pictures coming…. it’s hard to go through
1200 pictures when you work 8:30am-1030pm every day!

July 19th, 2005

July 18th, 2005

Avenged Sevenfold
Billy Talent
Alexisonfire
Atreyu
Choke
Comeback Kid

July 17th, 2005

It begins!  Pictures are up of

Thrice from Warped Tour.  15 more bands to come. Enjoy!

July 15th, 2005

Don’t worry! Pictures will be up by Sunday night.

July 13th, 2005

I am in Edmonton right now and have a photo pass for Warped Tour in Calgary
tomorrow! Pictures will be up by the weekend as we are driving back home *right*
after Warped Tour and then I shoot two weddings in a row.  “I’ll sleep next
weekend”

July 12th, 2005

July 11th, 2005

July 10th, 2005

July 9th, 2005

July 8th, 2005

July 7th, 2005

July 6th, 2005

July 5th, 2005

July 4th, 2005

July 3’rd 2005

Many-o-pictures have been added to the Friends section so check ’em out. I
have also kept the tradition of my last
WEEKS
WORK.

I love working for a daily newspaper so much. The Star Phoenix will give me
sooo much good experience. Words can’t describe how fortunate I feel to be able
to shoot every day with purpose. Last Monday was my first official day (though
the Thursday before I went to Prince Albert for an assignment to take pictures
of the people from Cumberland House who were evacuated due to flooding).

My first assignment was to take pictures of a weather station near Sutherland
Beach in the University research crops. All of the weather sensors were really
spaced out so it was hard to “fill the frame” with content so I just used the
sky as much as I could as a background and took a picture of the lady in charge
of research at the station with a cool weather sensor beside her… the picture
isn’t important, its what happened after that makes it the “perfect first
day”….

When I got back in my car I accidentally left my camera on the roof
and….guess where this is going….. I drove off with my much too expensive
camera on the roof of the car! The ladies back at the weather station chased
after me and one got in her car to chase after me but it was too late. I would
have to say that I drove a “surprisingly long time” without the camera falling
off but when I made a left turn going 20km/h I heard a sliding sound followed by
a thump!

Incredibly luckily though my camera survived the crash with only a $40 lens
hood breaking (due to it taking all of the impact). So I left my first
assignment with a damn good story to tell!

The next day my highlight was photographing three actors who were starring in
a comedic opera being put on later in the month. I was told that I needed to
make six different photos as they would be cover of The Saskatoon Sun, as well
as the entertainment section of The Sun and The Star Phoenix.

Since the actors were used to being on stage and working with lighting they
had no problem with me taking a little more time and setting up an umbrella
flash which really helped light the dark staircase in the Bessborough Hotel. The
actors had lots of character and were fun to photograph. The Opera is called
“Die Fledermaus” and it opens July 16th at the St. Joseph high school theater.

Wednesday was my first day where I was the only one on for the mornings.
During the summer I am basically taking over for the staff photographer’s
holidays and so starting Wednesday it was completely up to me to find and make
all the pictures for the paper until 2pm when the next staff photographer would
take over for the night shift.

Luckily on this day Saskatoon received record rainfall and so hundreds of
people’s basements flooded from all of the water and sewage backup. I had heard
on the radio that the underpass underneath the University bridge was closed down
due to flood water from all the rain so I quickly drove down their in the
morning and took pictures of all of the water. The pictures made cover of the
newspaper so I was pretty damned excited about that!

After the bridge I went to a couple houses that had flooded basements. I had
forgotten my rubber boots so I had to roll up my pants and walk bare foot
through sewage poop-water! It was gross but I was more concerned about getting
the photos. The people at the house let me use their bath tub after to wash my
feet off which was nice. I will be keeping rubber boots in the trunk of my car
from now on!

The next place that the reporter and I went to was two houses down. The
daughter had woken up in the morning in knee deep sewage water and after walking
through the brown water to get up stairs, the daughter and her mother watched as
the water rose higher and higher until it reached waist height and even tipped
their deep freezer full of food over on its side. Pretty gross! Luckily I didn’t
have to walk through that water.

Anyways I am story’d out and am going to bed so I can do it all over again
(less the poop water hopefully!)

July 1st, 2005

June 2005 Archive

***Click on the above link to view the whole June 2005 archive***

June 29th, 2005

Pictures are up of
Whitey
Houston when they played way-back-when at Louis’  Enjoy!

June 28th, 2005

Pictures are up of yet another Voyd reunion/breakup show :)Enjoy!

June 27th, 2005

June 26th, 2005

Pictures are up of
The
Junior Pantherz from last night. Enjoy!  Voyd and Whitey Houston to
follow.

June 25th, 2005

Goodbye Junior Pantherz *tears*  Pictures from last
night will be up by supper time hopefully.  It was so much fun to go to a
local show and see everyone last night. Being in Ontario these last two months
really made me miss “the scene” and I will really value all the shows and time I
spend with everyone in these next two months.

Thanks for all the hugs and welcome-backs….

June 23rd, 2005

June 21st, 2005

June 19th, 2005

All that we’ve seen for 3 days….

As “adventuresome” as driving through the States may sound there isn’t much
to it if you only stay on the Interstate Highways (like we did). There were lots
of cool things that we could have gone off track and seen but we had to make it
back ASAP so we didn’t stop for anything

I definitely want to travel through the states again with more adventure in
mind because there is a lot to see but for now I am damn happy to be in Canada
again.

I’m back!!!

June 17th, 2005

We decided to drive through the States to get home because it’s
“sposta be faster” but we keep on getting lost!!!

Tonight we drove through Chicago and it was the coolest
skyline I have ever seen. Victoria was all like “it’s not that great”  bla
bla bla”.  And then Ryan was all like “I don’t see any farm equipment or
grain silos. I’m scared!”

Anyways we called The Jerry Springer show to see if we could get
tickets for a live taping but Jerry is on hiatus for the summer and Oprah and
Dr. Phil have a 2 year waiting list so that dream will have to come true another
day….someday I’ll get that free car….someday!

Last night Mike (the Ukrainian student with a strong accent that
is hard to understand) was showing us pictures from his crazy Russian parties
with pickles and vodka and then he pointed to a guy in a picture and said “he is
dead now”. We all were kind of shocked and then Victoria says “wow, you have
some pretty crazy parties!”  We asked him how his friend died and then he
started talking about his friend’s kids….then we realized….. “Oh, he’s a DAD
now”

June 16th, 2005

June 15th, 2005

June 14th, 2005

June 13th, 2005

June 12th, 2005

Pictures are up of
Bigwig
and
No Use for a Name.  Enjoy!

June 11th, 2005

Pictures are up of
THE
REASON from last night in Ottawa.  No Use for a Name and Bigwig will be
up soon. Enjoy!

June 10th, 2005

I’m seeing THE REASON with BIGWIG and NO USE FOR A NAME
TONIGHT!!!

June 7th, 2005

Victoria: “How’s that paper clip working for keeping the bag closed?”Ryan: “Oh there’s nothing cumin out of this bag” ZING!

June 4th, 2005

Pictures are up of (it’s been 5 weeks without seeing a live band!!!)
The Junior Pantherz and
Bend Sinister. En-freakin-joy!

June 3rd, 2005

May 2005 Archive

***Click on the above link to view the whole May 2005 archive***

May 31st, 2005

May 29th, 2005

I just snapped this picture. DFM will note that I said snapped and not shoot. I snapped it beacuse I thought it looked cool (1 scoop of hard, one swoop of soft icecream!) and so I just pulled out my pocket sized digital camera and “snapped” the picture. Fully automatic. No shutter speed, aperture, depth of field, or composure to worry about. Just point and click.

I, like so many photographers just started out with a point and click camera. I didn’t worry about all of the numbers and whatnot of photography I just pointed the camera at whatever I thought was cool and snapped….I really miss doing that.

I always have a camera with me, and before I bought my digital SLR camera which is far larger and heavier than a pocket sized camera, I would just snap anything that I saw to be interesting with my point and click….but now that I am in photojournalism I always have my big camera with me and when I have my dSLR I never want to snap things that are “neat” – I want to shoot good pictures. As a result whenever I lift my dSLR I question whether what I am shooting is “neat” or good…..so…I never take pictures of neat things any more and I am missing that.

So now I am forcing myself to carry my point and click around more. Will I take amazing photojournalism pictures with it? Probably not. But I will be more likely to pull it out of my pocket and “snap” things that I think are cool, because that’s what started it all.

May 24th, 2005

So Victoria buys a Maxim magazine last week and inside there is a pin up poster of the actress Brittany Murphy. The picture is quite tasteful and simply has Brittany with her bare back turned to the camera and she is showing off her figure and her butt. I put the poster up on the door of our bathroom.

Well….one of my friends in our class who is by definition a hippy comes over to our appartment and sees the poster and says “oh, I don’t agree with that”. Ok, whatever. You don’t agree with it…. I’de love to debate why she doesn’t agree (we have some great debates) but I just go into my room.

An hour later I come out to find that my friend has torn the poster down, ripped it up and thrown it in the garbage! My friend has left and I am furious. Not because of the poster, but the principal of the thing.

SOOO to prove a point my other friend photographed me in the same pose in my boxers and I printed it poster size and put it on the wall in the same spot. Take that hippy!

What if I went into a persons house and saw a Marilyn Manson poster that I “disagreed” with so I tore it down and ripped it up. Or what if I didn’t like someones piercings so I ripped them out, or what if I disagreed with a persons music so I burned their CDs, or what if I disagreed with people wearing fur so I threw paint on them, or what if I disagreed with abortions so I bombed a clinic and killed a doctor.

Extreme examples, but examples still of how you don’t just rip something up, or vandalize things becuse you disagree with them….you have a conversation or debate with the person about the issue and either come to a conclusion and a result, or simply agree to disagree.

I’m not mad at my friend but rather reminded of why I hate hippies and activists who put their own values and actions before debate and reason. If you do anything you should be able to back it up with solid reason and fact. Not opinion and sensationalism.

I haven’t been mad at anything in a long time. Thank You.

May 23rd, 2005

Wow is time flying by! Another Weeks Work

May 21st, 2005

Yesterday we decided to go to the town of Tweed about 40
mins away from Belleville to see the annual Trudeau Park Victoria Day Weekend
party. Our teacher told about the event and that there was lots of cover bands
playing. I wasnít too fond of seeing a bunch of rock cover bands but we were
able to get in for half price because we were media students and would be taking
pictures.

When we got to Trudeau Park there were a ridiculous amount
of police officers checking everyone as they came in. I thought to myself ìwow,
this is going to be a super controlled event with this many policeîÖI was pretty
damn wrong.

As we came into the park there was a crappy stage with three people standing in
front of it. We kept hearing loud music and loud engines from afar so we decided
to walk up the hill and see what all the noise wasÖ.

I have never witnessed such a ridiculous thing in my life!
There was a giant mud pit with a race track around it and dozens of quads,
motorcycles, and beaten up shitty cars and trucks mud bogging and smashing into
each other.

Everyone was drunk; it was like the overflow at Candle Lake on August long
weekend only everyone was a redneck and driving their cars through mud. I donít
know how many times my heart dropped as I almost witnessed someone die.
Victoria, Francis and I all looked at each other in awe.

I only took a few pictures, making the fatal mistake of ìIíll take more
laterîÖ.so of course it poured rain later and I couldnít take my camera out.
Anyways enjoy the pictures. I didnít capture a fraction of how crazy it was. It
has been going on for 30 years I guess and hopefully this year no one dies!

May 20th, 2005

May 19th, 2005

May 18th, 2005

May 17th, 2005

I added some pictures I took when I walked around Kingston on Saturday. Enjoy!

May 15th, 2005

So I was going to be totally lame last night and stay in but then I decided to go to a local pub with the other students. The Molson Kick Girls were at the pub “kicking off” the new beer.

There was a contest to win a Molson Kick bar fridge and we really needed a second fridge because we have six people sharing one fridge in our residence. I flirted it up with the Molson girls (I did what I had to do Ashley and told them that I really needed to win the fridge because there wasn’t any room in our fridge for my Molson Kick that I drink all the time (which is actually true).

The girls told me I could enter a second time if I wanted and then they fixed the draw and picked my name out of the box. It was so awesome!

So now I am a firm advocate of Molson Kick and I have a bar fridge to keep it in!

More pictures from my “weeks work” are up. I am going to Kingston today so I will have more pictures tonight. We still don’t have internet in our residence so I have to update at the schools’ computer lab which sucks. My mom told me I should update more so I will try and have a “picture of the day” every day for the next five weeks while I’m here. Sound good?

In other cool news remember how I said that Trot magazine might buy pictures of Gord Brown off of us for their magazine? Well they did! They gave my friend Aaron and I $200 for three pictures, and they will be published in a magazine. Pretty awesome for our first time shooting (that’s right DFM shooting) horse racing!.

May 8th, 2005

A weeks work… (with PICTURES)

Hey everyone!  Sorry I haven’t updated in “too long” but I have #1 been
shooting tons, #2 having an AWESOME time in Ontario with photojournalism school
and all of the really cool people in my class (there are only 8 of us). Finally
#3 there is a “work stoppage” at Bell right now and so the Sympatico people
can’t get high speed internet in our residence for a few more days

I have to check my e-mails and update my site at a computer lab and it really
sucks but enough of that. What have I been doing? Well that question can best be
answered with PICTURES!  A lot of
these pictures really suck but I just figured I should throw up the “kinda best
of everything” I’ve shot in the last week.

On Tuesday we were given an assignment to go into town and find a person who
shows “character” and shoot three different aspects of them. I took pictures of
a CN Rail worker who has been working on the rails for 30yrs, a Future Shop
salesman who has the highest numbers in his store, and a carpenter who’s son
recently moved to Saskatchewan to learn a trade.

Wednesday we had our writing class. I am really looking forward to all of the
writing assignments we will be getting because I really must say (and if you
read my website you’ll notice) that three years of Engineering *killed* my
spelling, grammar, and all around ability to write.

Thursday was the last day of class for the week (that’s right we have class
mon-thurs and then get fri-sun off to shoot!) We went over everyone’s pictures
for the assignment (I chose the carpenter pictures to hand in) and then we were
given two assignments for the weekend. That night we went out on the town and
drank. Everyone in the class brings something completely different. There are
two girls from BC, one from Alberta, I am from Saskatchewan, there is a guy from
Quebec, a guy from Niagara Falls, a girl from Toronto who spent the last year
and a half overseas, and a guy from Ukraine who moved to Toronto eight years
ago. We all live in residence except for one girl who lives in Belleville. We
are already getting really close and I am super glad that we get along because
we are in class together, live together, and do our assignments together.

Friday we found a woman’s lacrosse tournament in town and caught the last
game and then went to the race tracks and shot ten horse races in a row. There
was a reporter from “Trot” magazine doing an article on Gord Brown, a racer who
won six races in a row! Aaron (one of the students) and I shot all ten games and
Trot magazine might buy some of the shots off of us which is pretty cool. Not
bad for our first time shooting a horse race!

Saturday we took a road trip to Toronto. I didn’t shoot that much
(surprisingly) as I mainly just wanted to walk around and see the street life.
The next time I go I will definitely shoot a whole lot more. We also want to
take a trip to New York City in the next couple weeks so I’ll get some shots
there too. For supper we went to a Korean BBQ restaurant where they give you the
raw meat and you cook it yourself with a grill built into the table. It was
really good food and fun to cook it yourself and share with others.

Today we went to Kingston and found a VE Day parade and ceremony at a church.
The town I am in (Belleville) is only 44,000 people but there is always
something going on and as you can see from everywhere I have been already, we
aren’t that far from anything we want to go to. Anyways once Bell figures out
their labor dispute I will have high speed internet in my room and can update
more but until then enjoy the pictures and go to a show for me!

May 2nd, 2005

I’ve added a few more Pictures of my trip and such. I will have internet in my room on Friday and then can update a lot more. Holy crap will I ever be taking A LOT of pictures in these next 7 weeks.

So it happened. I’m hooked. Believe it or not I had never tried Tim Hortons coffee before. *gasp!* I had enjoyed their cafe coolers several times but have never had their…coffee.

On the drive up Victoria was like “their coffee is so adictive” and I told her that I had never had it before. One sip and I finished her coffee off and we stopped at two more Tim Hortons on the way and I had it again this morning before class.

Damnit! I wish I had willpower!

April 2005 Archive

***Click on the above link to view the whole April 2005 archive***

April 29th, 2005

It is overcast and rainy so I haven’t really taken many Pictures yet but we payed extra to have internet in our hotel room so damnit I am going to update!

This is all I have seen for the last 14 hours of driving. My friend Kevin wasn’t kidding. The first day of driving in Ontario is just road, trees, and rocks. We have seen four moose though which is pretty cool. It’s funny because in Saskatchewan a moose is a rare thing to see and deer are what you are afraid of hitting with your car where here the moose are running accross the highways…and they are dumb!

I must say that I am quite surprised with Ontario so far. Tomarow we will be getting to the super populated areas as we get closer to Toronto but for what I have seen so far there…isn’t that much. I guess I am used to Saskatchewan where there are tons of small towns everywhere and lots of signs but for the first leg of the #17 highway there aren’t too many towns and they are very far apart. The driving is endless but luckely we have a laptop with many hours of movies and tv shows to watch so the time goes by.

Yesterday we “stopped for a quick supper” in Winneppeg which ended up taking close to three hours because we got lost and it took us an hour to get out of that city. It is really anoying when all of the streets are “named” streets as aposed to numbered streets. We spent the night in a town at some small motel that felt like a prison with cinderblock walls, no phone, and no alarm clock. Tonight however we are staying at a “fancy” Comfort Inn with so called “free wireless internet” which after spending two hours trying to get it to work I called tech support to find out that their network is down. So now it is 4:26am local time (2:26 home) and I am waiting to be able to update this and go to bed.

Tomarow we are going to give ‘er for another 14 hours and make it to Belleville. I’ll update in a couple days with more pictures and boring travel logs

April 28th, 2005

Well I’m off! Three days with three people driving in a Pontiac
Sunfire! We’re actually not going through the states to get to Belleville (even
though that is the fastest way) because we want to see Eastern Canada. I will be
updating pictures whenever I can of my adventures so check back every few days
and wish me luck! I’ll miss you all!

April 24th, 2005

Pictures are up from
LAST NIGHT. Thanks sooo much to
everyone who came out. What an awesome time with awesome friends. I’ll miss you
all!

April 22nd, 2005

To strategically compete with the show below at the Bassment The Fullblast w/
The Soccer Moms and Playing in Traffic

are playing at Louis’ on April 22nd too. $7, 8:00pm

Speaking of The Fullblast
remember when I took pictures of them 10 days ago? Enjoy!

April 21st, 2005

Pictures are up of Palmer from
Monday night. Enjoy!

April 20th, 2005

So I leave to Ontario in 8 days! Sorry for the lack of updates
but I’m pretty damned busy. I’m too busy taking pictures to update pictures

This Saturday 7pm at Winstons is going to be a farewell
drink-a-thon for any and all who are leaving in May or who wish to bid farewell
to those who are leaving in May. (Myself included). Just show up and celebrate
spring and new beginnings! (with beer)

April 14th, 2005

Pictures are up of Alexisonfire and
Rise Against.  I’m off to Calgary for a
Photojournalism Conference this weekend. Enjoy!

April 11th, 2005

April 10th, 2005

Pictures are up of
Death from Above 1979 and
Controller Controller from Friday
night. Enjoy!

April 8th, 2005

So after a wonderful evening at Louis’ to see Controller
Controller and Death from Above: 1979 I find this lovely note stuck under my
windshield wiper. Yes I did park “kinda close” to this person’s car but I
wouldn’t say close enough to make her walk to the credit union near by, grab an
envelope and write that on it in black glittery makeup. Yes makeup.

Seriously, who writes that? Especially at 12:30am at night in
the parking lot in front of Louis’. Wow. Who writes that?!

April 7th, 2005

Pictures are up from last night of….

April 5th, 2005

Holy shit! NOLTO
updated!

You should all go see Choke/The Reason/Ghosts of Modern Man tomorrow night at
Louis’

As is obvious I haven’t been updating much lately. Out of pictures? Out of
things to say? Computer Crashed? Camera Broken? No. Just been doing “other
things” like reading, working, spending valued time with friends before I leave
for 7 weeks, and most of all – getting all my shit together!

I come from a family of “keepers”. We keep everything. We keep too much. My
room/closet/shelves/etc have been piled up and saturated with crap that I have
wanted to keep…but will never use. Last week however, after holding on to
shoeboxes, bags, bins, and buckets full of papers and keepsakes for years I have
been simply throwing shit out.

I guess I had to move away to have a reason to do this. I have kept stuff
from high school and even elementary school that was in my closet for no other
reason other than “just to have it”. My solution to this problem was to do what
I do with everything. Take a picture.

Do I really need to keep my McDonalds crew member of the month trophy? No.
But I do like to remember receiving it so a picture of the trophy with suffice
and then chuck into the garbage.

It is a reassuring feeling to clean out a closet. Almost like I’m out with
the old and ready for the new. How fitting.

March 2005 Archive

***Click on the above link to view the whole March 2005 archive***

March 29th, 2005

Pictures are up from last night of….. Enjoy!

Adistin	At Birth Given Scars
Prevail	Playing in Traffic

March 25th, 2005

March 23rd, 2005

Pictures are up from The Taste of Chaos Tour of….

My Chemical Romance

The Used

March 21st, 2005

Pictures are up of Anatomy of
Melancholy, The Bleeding Alarm, and
Ten Second Epic.  Enjoy!

Rod Stewart is tonight! I couldn’t get a photo pass though
Only two more sleeps till Taste of Chaos !!! 

March 19th, 2005

Pictures are up of Autumn Tides
and Stereotrap. Enjoy!

March 18th, 2005

March 17th, 2005

Happy Birthday Kweku!

Don’t forget the show tomorrow night: March 18th – Stereotrap, Means,
Whittaker, Audumn Tides @ Living Hope Church, 102 Goerzen St. Saskatoon. 6:45pm
$8
March 14th, 2005

So I haven’t drank coffee in three
weeks. Well that is a lie I have had two cups but that was when no tea source
was available. I have been drinking tea in place of coffee in the morning and it
is sooo much better for you than coffee. The other day however I had to
drink coffee and wooooooeeeeee! I was so buzzed! I had forgotten the wonders of
coffee. Everything was so….so…..AWAKE! I cursed my tea [stop to take a sip
of tea] and was reunited with my caffeine addiction (or rather addiction to
large amounts of strong caffeine entering my body quickly). Tea is great, but
coffee still wins [stop to take another sip of tea]. Do you have a problem? Go

HERE for more info.

March 12th, 2005

WOW!  Punkoryan has the pictures of
The Paper *Kites,
Fury and the Mouse,
Maybe Smith and
Jacketbox up the SAME NIGHT as the show!  Just like the good ol’ days!
Enjoy!

March 11th, 2005

Coolest car commercial ever! No I’m not getting paid for this, and no the car isn’t even available in Canada. But the commercial was made in Canada and it is hilarious. Click HERE to watch.

March 9th, 2005

There are a TON of shows coming up so check out the shows section!

I accidentally slept in an entire hour the other day. I usually take an hour
to get ready in the morning but that day I was showered, brushed, and lunched in
10 minutes! When that happens you have to wonder what it would be like if you
treated everything you did as if you only had 10 minutes to do it. Think of all
the extra time you would have to get other things done…

There have been many studies released
lately by scientists who predict that in the future, with medical science going
the way it is now, that we will live to be over 150 years old. When I first
heard this I thought “no way, humans aren’t supposed to live that long” and then
I remembered that it wasn’t too long ago in our species that we only had a life
expectancy of 40 years. Now 90 and 100 years isn’t too uncommon. Also living to
150 wouldn’t mean you spend more years in a nursing home but rather you
wouldn’t start to really age until you hit 110 or 130 and then you would
be “old”.

Even though I won’t be living to
150 I wonder what it would be like to know that you are probably going to live
that long. Would you spend more time enjoying life because you know you have the
time? Or would you just end up procrastinating life. “I’ll go back to school
when I’m 70”, or “I want to wait until I’m 55 to have kids so I know I will be
more financially stable”.

I am always saddened to hear about the
people who procrastinated their lives, or “saved up” their time (or money) and
then never got to spend it due to an accident or illness.  I have always grown
up knowing that I have about 80 years to get things done (maybe 100 if I take
after my Dad’s side) and so based on that I am 22/80’ths or 27.5% done my
life….and I have barely even started!

Knowing that I am “running out of time”
makes me want to kick start my life even more. It makes me want to work hard at
life, school, profession, (website?) so that I can live my (approximately) 80
year life to the fullest.

If I was only 22/150’ths or 14.7% into
my life then I don’t know if the drive to “get there” would be as great simply
because “I can get around to doing that later”.

It is always cool to hear the stories of
people who turned their lives around. You always see people who’s lives you
think will go nowhere and you know that they probably won’t do anything about
it, and then there are the people who one day make a decision and 1, 5, 10 years
later they tell the stories of how they had hit rock bottom or how they were in
a dead end job, or something and then went back to school, or took a risk and
pursued their dream and never looked back, etc.

I know the majority of people here
reading this right now are under 30 years old (and many more under 20) and to
all of you I remind you that you have that opportunity now. We aren’t
going to live to be 150, but maybe our grand children will. We have to inspire
them to live life to the fullest by doing so ourselves. We have to value,
cherish, take advantage of, and live life to the fullest because even though we
can always “get around to doing it later”, its easier to do it now, and now has
the greater payoff later.

I used to think the meaning of life was
to achieve 100% happiness in life. I have learned that it is actually the
friends, family, experience and knowledge that we gain in the pursuit of it
throughout our lives that makes life worth living. Make the best of it.

March 4th, 2005

Pictures are up (I’ll be honest I forgot!) of
Chimpan-A to Chimpan-Z,
Adelade, Adolyne
and Orion.   Enjoy!

March 3rd, 2005

As many of you know I have made the biggest (and I would say best) decision
of my life to leave my pursuit of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
and follow my much greater calling of Photojournalism.

I *finally* got “the letter” on Monday and now I will be moving to Belleville
Ontario in May to take a course in Photojournalism. I will leave in May, come
back after 7 weeks, then leave again in September for 7 more months. I have been
accepted into Loyalist College which is one of the highest regarded
photojournalism schools in Canada, and I will be doing a “fast track” program
where you do the whole two year course in 11 months.

Photography has changed, shaped, and guided me in these last three years.
When I bought my first digital camera and started taking pictures, then shooting
bands “just for fun”, then running punkoryan.com I never imagined (though it was
in the back of my mind) that this is what I would end up doing as a profession.

I have always had Engineering in my sights since I was in high school and
leaving EE is still crazy to me, however I know that I have the drive, spirit,
talent, persistence and optimism to pursue my dreams. We all do. For the last
three years I had always told myself that Engineering would be my profession and
photography would be my hobby. It became the opposite of that.

For the last three years I knew that if I left Engineering I would always
wonder “what if”…. but now it is more that if I had stayed in Engineering I
would have always wondered “what if”.

I (of course) am still going to run punkoryan.com and while I am in Ontario
you will be seeing lots of pictures of huge bands. I don’t want the pictures
from Saskatoon and Regina’s scenes to stop though. I am going to create a new
section on this site where people can upload their own pictures of shows. I need
an army of punk-o-people to send me their pictures and I will put them up. We
have to keep our Saskatoon scene growing.  Regina is kicking our ass!

I thank you all for your support and friendship. If it wasn’t for all of you
going to my site every day and supporting me I never would have done this. You
all have my love.

-Ryan Jackson

www.punkoryan.com

March 2nd, 2005

Pictures are up of Ghosts of Modern Man
and Means from Friday night. Pictures of “the first
band” will be up as soon as I find out their name

March 1st, 2005